Learn all about the new Google Content Rating Framework E-E-A-T.

When content marketing entered the marketing scene, it was original, innovative, and broke all the traditional marketing norms. The idea baffled the marketers with years of practice in cold calls who wondered if creating content for their businesses would even work.

Had you imagined customers approaching you?

Nevertheless, with a meticulous strategy and advancement of technology, inbound marketing began generating more leads and conversions, improving the brand reach. This made it much easier for customers to find new companies on their own terms.

It’s no secret that the web is growing by millions of pages per day, but it’s astounding that about 90.63% of content gets no traffic from Google.

The surge of success drove businesses to create content to engage prospects which flooded the web. But, in these modern times, you can’t get away with quick growth hacks as audiences are becoming more aware of what they’re being sold.

The digital marketing scenario is flooded with new platforms that are gaining popularity, but a high ranking on Google tops the list if you want to boost traffic to your website.

Google is still the most popular website worldwide, as the first five organic results generate more than 67% of all clicks on its first page.

With the number of online content available snowballing by the second, you need to ensure that your content is ranked higher than your competition, as ranking high on Google is still one of the biggest challenges.

So, if you want to know how you rank on Google, knowing how Google rates your content will be extremely helpful.

What is the Google Content Rating Framework?

Several factors go into Google’s algorithm, which has grown and developed significantly over the years. Hence, the SEOs need to be alert to new developments in how Google ranks web pages which may impact your business and clients.

Unless you are new to the search industry, you’ve perhaps heard about Google E-A-T, a concept that has been around since 2014.

Just recently, there was a significant change with the addition of the letter E to E-A-T, making it E-E-A-T.

So, what is E-E-A-T? Read on to find out exactly what it is, why it matters, and how it affects your SEO efforts.

• Experience: Does the author have first-hand knowledge and understanding of the subject?
• Expertise: Is the author of the content an expert in this subject?
• Authoritativeness: Does the author have the authority to discuss the topic?
• Trustworthiness: Is the author of the content or the website a reliable one to listen to?

Ensuring reliable information by applying E-E-A-T

As we all know, anybody can create a website and publish whatever they want.

Nowadays, we can see people sharing medical information or discussing investments despite not being a doctor or having a finance degree.

However, it presents a problem for Google as the audience makes important decisions based on what they learn from search results. E-E-A-T is one way Google wants to ensure that it provides correct, truthful, reliable, and valuable information to searchers.

Wouldn’t it be beneficial to you as a user if you get thorough medical information from an experienced doctor that is more valuable than a random blog post providing unverified medical advice?

Google aims to ensure those decisions are based on the most trustworthy information possible. Thus, Google considers the experience, expertise, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness of the individual creator of page content, the content itself, and the entire website.

So, to get started with great content for your website, you have to understand your audience and communicate with them through valuable content, and that’s the only way to survive and thrive as a brand.

How to get started with the Google Content Rating Framework?

I admit that the Google Content Rating Framework is a lot of work. But here are some things you can follow to ensure you meet all the parameters, and give your content a chance to win organic success:

1. Know your target market and your ideal customer persona

Create a buyer persona that summarizes your target audience’s demographics and requirements to determine who your consumer is. It means researching your customers and competitors, defining your audience’s needs, and evaluating how your product’s benefits correspond with these needs. You’ll be able to understand where to find your ideal customers, create the features they need, and deliver the content they’re interested in.

Once you define your customer persona, it will help you further develop your strategy about the product itself and sales and marketing. It allows you to narrow your marketing strategy, create a competitive domain, and adapt to your customers’ varying needs.

2. Know your direct and indirect competitors well

Competition is essential for growth, and when a business accurately assesses its competitors and betters itself to keep up, it’s a win. Even in marketing, Competition is inevitable, and analyzing it can motivate you to learn and adapt the business to meet consumer needs better.

You most likely think of your direct competitors when you think of a marketing competitor. Direct competitors are different businesses providing similar products or services for the same client needs in the same market as you.

For example, Pepsi and Coca-Cola, McDonald’s and Burger King, and many more like these. Competition doesn’t just apply to huge, national, or international brands; even the smallest markets will have direct Competition. Digital companies, e.g., Instagram and Snapchat offering similar features, also see direct Competition.

Indirect Competition is when two or more businesses offer different services and products, competing for the same market to satisfy the same customer requirements. E.g., a food vendor selling pastries is an indirect competitor of one selling ice cream. They both serve customers who crave something for their sweet tooth, even though they sell different products.

When it comes to marketing, understanding your direct and indirect Competition can help you attract new audiences by improving your campaigns. Analyzing your indirect Competition can help marketers tap into a broader audience that can boost SEO and get your business to the top of the SERP.

3. Identify market saturation, gaps, and opportunities

Suppose a customer is looking for a specific product or service, but it’s currently unavailable. If you’re a business dominating that particular product, then this gap in the market is a business opportunity for you to grab.

You may also offer that product or service in a completely different and better way. This is called creative swiping, where you take an idea from someone else and give it a good twist to create something new.

Every successful business undergoes some sort of market saturation or gaps, and these gaps are opportunities disguised as opportunities for other businesses. More often than not, companies based on a gap in the market perform remarkably.

Such firms can visualize and provide something that no one else previously did. For example, Netflix has filled several market gaps over the years. First with its initial mail-order movie rentals and then with its online streaming platform.

4. Set a clear business goal and objective before creating content

We have all been guilty at some time of producing and publishing 500-word blog posts to increase our presence on the SERPs. However, as we all know, “Google loves fresh content.”

But, if you are still doing it and it’s your “content strategy,” then you need to stop and take immediate action. Because you’re wasting your time by producing content without a clear goal. There’s also a possibility that this would classify as thin content with no unique value, which is not good for your brand.

Every piece of content you produce must have a purpose and be able to justify why you decided to write that blog post or design that infographic. It’s all about realizing what specific content can do for your brand.

Set clear goals and objectives as to what you want to achieve from your content. It may be to rank on the SERPs, earn links, educate an audience or drive social engagement. But don’t expect a single piece of content to achieve everything for a brand. You need to focus on accomplishing goals and KPIs relating to the main subject; anything beyond that is a bonus.

5. Leverage the HubSpot pillar approach to content

With the help of HubSpot’s SEO tools, you can organize your content into topics important to your customers. Every topic comprises a pillar page and supporting content. Linking the supporting content back to a pillar page on your main website helps search engines discover your content which shows up in search results.

A pillar page covers all the features of a specific topic on a single page, with some room for in-depth information in a more comprehensive cluster of blog posts that hyperlink to the pillar page. Pillar pages primarily cover a specific topic, and cluster content should address a particular keyword related to that topic in-depth. Content on a pillar page should also adapt to convert visitors since all your supporting content links back here.

6. Build topical authority and stay relevant

Creating topical authority is a great way to rank your pages in Google searches, boosting organic traffic numbers. But what is topical authority, and how can you implement it on your website?

A topical authority is a measure of your website’s reliability built up through proven expertise and trust in your field. It is built by consistently creating high-quality content about a given subject. The more detailed and informative articles on your website about a topic, the more readers and search engines will see you as a subject matter expert. When a website has topical authority, it establishes trustworthiness for keyword searches related to a particular topic.

To be topically authoritative, you must help your users by answering all their queries and providing excellent content at each step of the buyer journey. By doing this, you are drawing your buyers with your expertise and passion for the subject.

Content is the way to nurture your buyers. Topical relevance proves to search engines that you’re well-informed and trustworthy. By now, we all know that Google wants the best possible content from the most credible sources for its users.

7. Measure and optimize your content

Quality content is defined by a goal that brings good results and, eventually, great success. Google evaluates multiple aspects using various quality signals to see if your content is relevant to a particular query.

The initial step in content optimization is to measure your content. If you can’t determine the baseline metrics, you can neither diagnose what’s wrong with your content nor measure if your intervention will improve it.

You can measure whether your content is working or not by identifying the traffic and conversion of your website:

Traffic

• Keyword rankings and rank drops (SEO tools)
• Organic traffic and traffic drops (Google Analytics)

Conversion

• Underperforming blogs and landing pages (Google Analytics)
• Lead capture conversion analysis (CRM or lead capture tools)
• Declining conversion rates (Google Analytics)

Once you measure your content, it becomes easier to optimize it.

• Optimize your content based on search intent
• Improve on-page SEO using content optimization software
• Update all outdated links, images, and citations
• Internal linking and website design optimization
• Boosting your content with high-quality and detailed content
• The content “relaunch” by implementing E-E-A-T

Wrapping Up

If you can deliver what your audience wants in an experienced, expert, authoritative, and trustworthy way, your SEO efforts are more likely to succeed, and you’ll always be in a prime position.

We have implemented this framework with many of our clients and have seen stellar results along the way!

If you want to amp up your content strategy to align with the Google content rating framework and algorithms, feel free to reach out to me or my team at Contensify.